Here at Cambridgshire Constabulay our neighbourhood policing team in Fenland came up with an idea to raise much needed funds for one of the schools local to them.

The 'Blue Light Race', which will run from 10th to the 24th August 2020, is a virtual race between police, fire and ambulance services here in Cambridgeshire to help raise funds for Meadowgate Academy.

For those of you who don’t know Meadowgate Academy, the staff care for children aged between two and 19 who have a range of learning difficulties.

Through joint working with the children’s parents, the staff work extremely hard to try to make sure every child reaches their full potential. The curriculum at the school helps the pupils communication and physical development while establishing essential life skills.

Cambridgeshire police runs a police cadet scheme for the children at the academy and it was through one of the local inspector's visits to meet the cadets that he spoke with the head teacher, Michelle, and it was as a result of that conversation that the Blue Light Race was born.

Michelle spoke very passionately about the work her staff do, as well as explaining the pressures the academy faces with trying to make their budget stretch as far as possible and how the school couldn't be run without the kindness and generosity of the local community through fund-raising events and donations.

They really do work wonders with the money they have available however the challenge they face is getting harder as the vehicles they have get older and older and start to break down more frequently.

These vehicles have all sorts of adaptions to make sure all pupils are able to go out on school trips and enjoy themselves, however these adaptions such as the wheelchair ramp are now also starting to break down. The cost to replace a minibus with all the required adaptions is approximately £35,000 and the Blue Light Race hopes to aide the school in reaching that total.

So how does the Blue Light Race work?

The race starts at midnight on Monday 10th August and finishes at Midnight on Monday 24th August.

During this time we are asking people to get involved by adding mileage to one of the three blue light teams; police, fire or ambulance.

This can be through walking, running, cycling, swimming, hopping, skipping - whatever takes your fancy!! All you need to do is let us know how many miles you are racking up by posting your mileage on social media with the hashtag of your chosen team:

#BLRpolice - #BLRfire - #BLRambo

In order for your mileage to be added to your chosen team, we ask you to make a donation to our Just Giving page - you only need to donate once to but you can add as many miles as you like by posting on social media with the hashtag. Obviously, you can donate as many times as you like but only once is required.

To help us reach our target you could even ask those around you to sponsor your mileage!

The team with the most miles at the end of the race wins! What do they win? Well the prize is the biggest of blue light family bragging rights!

We're pleased to say that Peterborough United have let us know their staff and players will be supporting our event, as have celebrities Katie Piper and Ricky Rayment.

Now, we just have one question for you... which team are you?!